Phil Mickelson is back on the PGA Tour this week, at the Farmers Insurance Open, his first tournament appearance since November's HSBC Champions event in China, which saw him play alongside, and beat, Tiger Woods on the final day.

A lot has happened since that Sunday afternoon in Shanghai, most notably Lefty's transformation from the second best player in the golf to the de facto "face of golf". For this, he can thank his old nemesis, Woods, who after years of making Mickelson look human on the golf course has spent the last couple of months making him look like a saint away from the golf course.

It will be fascinating to hear this week what Mickelson has to say on the subject of Woods.

Are Tour players edgy these days? I asked @Paul_Casey an innocuous Tiger question today and he said,"Why don't you just hand me a grenade?"

Call me strange but I found Casey's response to Shipnuck extraordinary - that, six weeks after the event the Englishman felt unable to answer a straight-forward question about Woods. Was he one of the few people in the golf industry who didn't have any thoughts on the subject? Was he unable to think of an answer? Did he, as one of the world's top-10 players, really think he would never be asked about Woods?

Contrast Casey with Geoff Ogilvy, who was asked about Woods in Abu Dhabi last week and responded with intelligent, grown-up answers. You can look at the full transcript here, but this was the answer that got most of the headlines:

Q: (Where do you think would be the best tournament for him to return to in that regard).

GEOFF OGILVY: I think the least amount of circus he could face would be if he went to Augusta first. That would be the most controlled environment he could be in, but if he truly, truly wants to win Augusta, he's going to want to play before then. I think he should actually come out in public before not at a golf tournament. I think he should come out away from the golf course, one, out of respect for all of the other players, and two, to diffuse the circus part of it at least before he actually gets to the golf tournament I think would be the best thing for him, and for every other player and for the tournament

There, was that really too explosive? Of course not - except for people who think they are entitled to take all that they can from the sport and give back the minimum in, say, meaningful contributions on issues that affect professional golf

Still, admiration for the Aussie doesn't not preclude making the obvious point that while it is one thing to hear joined-up thinking from his mouth, but quite another to hear it from Phil Mickelson. The Californian is, for the want of a better word, a "superstar"; a mainstream figure in sports-mad America and,as such, has the power to influence the way people think about golf as a sport.

Rightly or wrongly, Woods, by virtue of his brilliance as a golfer, has been allowed to set the tone for the last decade and, frankly, the tone he has set has in large been aloof (no autographs, please!), self-centred and condescending. Where Woods has gone, others have followed because, sadly, many professional golfers are like that; sheep.

Ogilvy isn't. Nor is Mickelson, who has taken the opposite approach from that adopted by Woods. He has always been good at inter-acting with fans and has been pretty good with the media (see this forthright interview with Golf Digest). Its safe to assume, he'll sign every scrap of paper put in front of him this week. It would help, too, if he was frank and honest when talking about the world No1, if only to prove to that professional golf is capable of treating its audience with respect rather than the disdain that, sadly, has become the norm.

This doesn't mean he needs to be unsympathetic - not that he would be. For all the Tiger-Phil nonsense down the years, any enmity that existed between the two was always in one direction, which is to say from Tiger towards Phil. From Mickelson's point-of-view there was only ever respect, as well as bemusement that Woods, with whom he has a great deal in common (excluding the racy private life, obviously), could be so personally cold towards him on occasion.

But what Mickelson might want to point out is that this Woods business is not disaster but an opportunity, the chance to re-cast professional golf as something more than the sporting equivalent of Elvis Presley and the Jordanaires. For the last decade the sport has become too dependent on Woods, with all the (obvious) benefits that came with that, like money, and the (less obvious, and less discussed) drawbacks, like the sour mood and tone.

A new reality exists in the sport, one where Elvis cedes at least some of the limelight. Geoff Ogilvy appears to understand that. Hopefully, Mickelson does too and will say as much.